


The Undeserving

by Adsecula



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Dark Comedy, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Political Alliances, Slow Burn, Trauma, Unrequited Hate, gallirae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-27 04:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16695160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adsecula/pseuds/Adsecula
Summary: The battle of Jakku ends with the imprisonment of Rae Sloane and Gallius Rax.(Aftermath: Empie's End AU, slow burn)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PermianExtinction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PermianExtinction/gifts).



_are you dangerous?_  
_with your measure of proof_  
_thoughts are slivers of gold_  
_abscond with the truth_

***

He hears them howling for his blood while he is still occupied with breaking her fingers. In response, he hums the _Cantata of Cora Vessora_.

Rax knows, from personal experience, that it takes precisely three and a half minutes to reach the inner chamber of the Observatory, even at a running pace.

He has enough time.

It’s a regretful business, Rae Sloane’s disloyalty. She _should_ have been standing next to him on this occasion. Still - she will be of some use to him yet, though she won’t be aware of it.

A noble end, to be laid out as a holy sacrifice to his destiny. For she will be the one to draw out the very last enemies standing between himself and his future. He knows she will.

_Thank you, Rae._

He pants as he puts more pressure over her mouth and nose, straining himself until thin trickles of spit begin to froth out from his mouth. She struggles gamely, of course, and they’re both exhausted – thankfully, the lack of oxygen soon makes her movements slacken.

His eyes dart left and right, left and right, left and right. His eyelid twitches. He feels his mind spinning at speeds and complexities beyond his comprehension.

Beneath his weight, Rae Sloane finally ceases to move.

He holds her down a few more moments, just in case she’s faking it. Then he stands up shakily and brushes his filthy uniform down.

He’ll do his best to remember Sloane fondly in his new demesne, Rax decides. Even if she did sometimes speak cruelly barbed words about him.

He sighs and licks his own blood off his upper lip. The familiar iron tang of its taste makes his sinewy frame shudder uncomfortably.

The corridor outside echoes with the angry cries of Sloane’s companions, unknowingly making their way to their doom. That is well.

Sloane really _should_ have believed in the Contingency: in the plans Rax had so painstakingly worked to bring into fruition, instead of her crumbling and etiolated Empire.

On sudden impulse, Rax bites down on his leather glove and tugs it free of his hand. He spits it out from his teeth and kneels, indulging himself in a quick measure of her heartbeat. Her pulse confirms to him that she is in tolerable physical condition, if a little bruised and injured from their duel.

He briefly considers taking her along with him, after the rebels have been dispatched into oblivion. It is a very tempting whim, but he fears that it would prove too ambitious an undertaking: he might be late in arriving to his ship; indeed, she might try to kill him again after she wakes. A thousand other complications might arise.

A pity.

He scuttles off into the shadows at the entrance door, readying himself to pounce on the next person to come through.

His head aches and his chest burns. He tries to concentrate.

Palpatine’s Empire had been a nest of snakes, as Rax well knows. So it’s very foolish of these friends of Sloane to assume they can just thrust their hand into Palpatine’s final conspiracy and come out unscathed.

What hurts him the most about this whole ordeal is how Rae had fallen into the same trap. _Worse_ , even: she had jealously guarded a mere shedding of snake skin as her own weapon. She had somehow built her hopes around the mistaken belief that one hollow scrap of imperial remnants would still have the venomous bite of an entire mighty Empire.

That wasn’t how these things went, but such is the power of true belief! Now, if only its flames had been directed at his own cause, that would have been a force to be reckoned with.

But it is useless to lament. Palpatine is long gone. Everything he had built would follow into his grave. Rax had tried to give Sloane helpful hints about the truth of the matter, without spoiling the surprise - but she had been too stubborn to even play at his game properly, let alone to trust his words on faith alone.

He wanted dearly to tell her now that her Empire was a papery-thin mourning veil; that it was a shadow of its former self, a weakened abomination. It would be snuffed out within the hour.

The real snake, in the meantime, had already slithered off to recuperate. It would strike when it was recovered. His forces, gathering in the Unknown Regions and awaiting their leader - those were the sharpened fangs. That was what he wanted to tell her right now. If only she wasn’t so inconsiderate, lying around unconscious, ignoring him…

Rax’s teeth begin to chatter. It’s not just the cold.

 _That was how your Empire would have been reborn, Rae. Strong and new and merciless,_ Rax thinks, flexing his fingers and grimacing. His own bitterness surprises him. _You would have grown to like it, but now you’ll never know._

Forget the old way. Wasn’t that the phrase she liked? She’d nodded to that very sentiment often enough, while they had still been on pleasant enough terms to talk together.

Yet still she clung to the old way, like a frightened child at the skirts of its caretaker.

 _Two more minutes_ , he thinks, shivering curiously.

It was not Rax’s fault she was not attuned enough to the possibilities he had offered. He licks the blood off from his lips again.

Oh well. She is - soon to be _was_ , unfortunately - a brilliant woman, his misguided Sloane. But almost painfully unimaginative when it came to seeing the greater picture of things. He’d lied to her, sure, but she should have seen through the lies. Should have passed the test of deceit. Should have, could have…

That was not his fault, either, was it?

Rax licks at his mouth feverishly, as if to clean what may never be cleansed again.

A shadow falls across the hallway. The sound of swift feet resounds through the adjoining hall.

Finally!

Rax tenses, awaiting the perfect moment to take down the approaching figure. He is patient. He always has been. It’s years and years since he was a boy, skulking around the Plaintive Hand and killing intruders, but Palpatine’s lessons have thankfully stuck with him.

The shadow lengthens and bursts through the doorway. Its owner soon follows.

With a shriek meant to rattle his opponent, Rax leaps from the side and knocks the woman neatly to the ground. His hand is already squeezing her arm, keeping her blaster well away from any aiming position. All according to plan.

The next moments, however, are a complete surprise.

Rax fully expected Sloane’s new friends to respond to the harsh yell of their fallen companion. A plea for help is seldom ignored by soft-spirited creatures. That had been the plan. That had been why he’d resorted to snapping her finger bones. He had correctly anticipated that they would run towards her, too, her precious new friends.

He would easily acquire a blaster from the first person he got rid of and would then shoot his way out. Head to the ship and reach for the stars.

Easy.

In hindsight, that plan was the very problem.

For Rax had only expected _them_ : the two meddling rebels who had followed Sloane into the Observatory.

He had not expected _this_.

These people are a full battalion.

In the dim light, for a split second he believes them to be a stray troop of his own army. He prepares to grin confidently and improvise some orders, but it’s all cut short as he spots the orange-and-white pilot uniforms. Their multitude of sharpshooting weapons are all pointing towards him.

Rax licks his dry lips and twitches his eye, evaluating the chances of his escape.

He giggles a tiny bit.

They’re not very good.

***

 

The erstwhile Grand Admiral jolts into consciousness.

From where she lies, face-down in the cold dust and in blindingly sharp pain, Rae slowly jerks her limbs into a half-sitting position.

A sickly slurping noise issues from the old wound at her side. Rae’s eyes fill with tears of agony.

Groggily, she tries to shield the injury with both her hands - even the broken one. She can feel a sticky warm wetness seeping through her clothes. The smell of blood reaches her nostrils.

The whole place is eerily empty. Not a single breath stirs the musty old air.

She can’t see Rax, _damn him_.

Anxiety sweeps through her. Is he somewhere near?

Or has he fled, the coward?

She endures utter torture as she slowly - painstakingly slowly - drags herself away. No one is around to follow her, except a tiny skittering thing that hides itself behind a panel as she passes.

She limps down the silent corridors of the Observatory. She hurries along as best as she’s able, but in truth she’s unsure of what to do next. She doesn’t know how much time has passed – the fear that Rax may have slipped beyond her reach is almost too awful to consider, so she concentrates on the planned destruction of the planet instead.

If the Observatory’s deadly system has been halted, it means she’s been left unarmed and incapacitated in the middle of a raging battlefield.

If it’s still running, she doubts she’ll be able to shut down anything so complex on time.

Either way, her suffering is soon to end.

 _Lucky me_ , Rae thinks, gritting her teeth.

It’s only spite that keeps her from collapsing. She was never content to be passive, so she’ll make the most of what little time she has left. She doesn’t get very far into the next corridor, though, when a familiar voice ahead stops her dead.

‘Whatever you’re planning, I’m afraid I can’t allow it.’

Rae stands to attention, half-stumbling, ripples of pain slashing through her abdomen.

It’s only Norra Wexley, she knows. Yet the woman has planted her feet firmly across Rae’s only escape route.

‘Where is he?’ Rae gasps. ‘Quickly, I need to get to him before he –’

‘Everything’s been taken care of’, Norra replies evenly. ‘I was just heading back down to find you. Didn’t think you’d be up so soon, in your state.’

‘He’s dead then?’ Rae snarls.

This possibility hurts Rae almost worse than knowing he escaped. _She_ should have been the one to kill him!

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Then we’ve no time!’ Rae snaps. She quickens her pace towards Norra. ‘Soon we’ll have no way of finding him!’

‘Calm down. He’s already been taken into our custody. He’s going nowhere.’

Rae halts. She blinks as she realises the implications of what Norra is saying.

‘You only came back to capture me, didn’t you?’ She growls.

‘Look, I came to see if you were still alive. Which you obviously are. Even though you clearly need urgent medical attention. Which you’ll get, too, because the New Republic actually treats its prisoners with basic decency.’

Rae shifts uncomfortably, trying to hide her wound.

‘Don’t be coy, _Grand_ _Admiral_. You need your body checked up now’, Norra continues, with a steely gaze. ‘There’s surgery and a good long soak in a bacta tank in store for you, I guarantee, by the looks of those blood stains you’re sporting.’

‘I’ll deal with my injuries later. I want Rax and you’re going to show me where he’s being kept. I need to finish what I came here for.’

Rae hears her own voice cracking with desperation. She hates herself for it.

‘No. You’re going to come quietly or you’re going to stay inside here and rot’, Norra snaps. ‘Now, either option is fine by me - but poor Brentin unfortunately seems to have developed a soft spot for you.’

‘Wait. Wait, alright. I’ll go’, Rae whispers, keeping on the façade of worry and shame etched on her face.

She waits until she’s right next to Norra and slams her head into the woman’s face.

Rae runs.

‘To hell with you!’ Norra shouts, stunned, nursing her cheek and fumbling at her belt.

Rae turns a corner, half crouching in pain. She only needs to reach outside, she only needs to hide, she only needs to find _him_ and _end_ this madness…

Norra raises her blaster and follows, her jaw locking tightly in regret.

‘Sloane, damn it all! Stop right now or I _will_ shoot to kill!’

Before Norra can made good on her promise, Rae hears a shot _from the other side_ of the corridor. Her eyes widen. She feels the sharp pain only a fraction of a second before she realises she’s taken a stun capsule right into her shoulder.

 _No!_ Rae wants to scream, but all that issues from her bruise-swollen lips is a muted whimper.

Rae slumps forward inelegantly, every muscle tingling in shock. Her mind is still fully aware as her body twitches itself to a numb halt. She had not expected such underhand stealthiness from him. A misjudgement of an underdog. It has just cost her everything.

Norra walks over slowly, watching her with something akin to disappointment. Her blaster is slowly placed back into its holster.

‘You really do have a soft spot for her, don’t you?’ Norra asks ruefully.

‘Like I already said: it’s _not_ what you think’, Brentin responds with sadness. ‘Please believe me.’

He nods at Rae, crumpled on the floor like a broken doll. ‘She deserves a trial, at least. To be heard out fairly. She was tricked, too, you know. She wasn’t behind anything that happened to me. She didn’t even know about the real plans the fleet admiral had made. She’s not, she’s not some _rabid animal_ that needs to be shot.’

‘Unlike the one outside, you mean.’

‘Yes.’

‘So I guess justice wins today’, Norra smiles bitterly. Her face suddenly twists into itself, as though she’s fighting back tears. She adds softly:

‘I had more than half been hoping for vengeance, you know.’

‘You can’t mean that. Not really.’

‘I suppose not. At least, I hope I won’t mean it. I just need some time to… come to terms with all of this’, Norra says, closing her eyes heavily. ‘Oh, Brentin. Don’t you see how it will look to others? When they find out that all this time you were out here with the enemy?’

‘Everything I did on Jakku wasn’t for _her_ ’, Brentin says huskily. He reaches out for Norra’s hand. After a moment’s hesitation, she takes it.

‘I told you. I want everyone to know it wasn’t my choice to do the Empire’s dirty work. I want the truth out. I wanted to do some good. For _you_. For Temmin, at least, who right now probably believes that his own father is an imperial incendiary.’

‘Good’, Norra replies, a little hoarsely. ‘Because I doubt _she’ll_ be thanking you for anything, once she finds her tongue again.’

‘It’s better than a slow and painful death’, Brentin counters. He looks down at Rae, a little sheepishly. ‘Isn’t it?’

The silent glare she gives him is very telling.

***

 

Long minutes pass.

Or perhaps it’s days. Or centuries.

Rae slides in and out of consciousness, her wound throbbing even beyond the heavy dose of sedatives she’s been forcefully spiked with. Someone is still talking to her: Brentin, she thinks.

She can’t move.

She's restrained, she's trapped, she's helpless; her body has betrayed her again and she's nothing nothing _nothing_.

Rae pants with exertion, muscles bursting with effort. No use. She can’t move, let alone run.

The years strip away to reveal, once more, just a sorry little outcast. Poor foolish Rae, caught trying to reach a fabled starship to freedom.

There seems to be a commotion outside the Observatory. She hears a lot of yelling and running around. The unfamiliar voices begin to crowd the inside of her cranium, making her head explode into violent pinpricks of dizzying light. She wants to weep with how desperately she would like to fall back into oblivion.

‘We’re over here’, Norra calls out to someone. ‘We’ve got her.’

Footsteps echo as others step closer to her, crowding like vultures over carrion. A shadow drapes itself over her form. A pair of cuffs clicks into place around her wrists.

She’s gently lifted into a sitting position. Some kind of medical staff member and a soldier in rebel gear fuss over how best to transport her outside. She’s about as responsive as a piece of meat.

Her heart thunders and hiccups and bounces against her ribcage: for a while, Rae fears she may be having a stroke. By the time she regains her cool, she’s already being taken away, back up the winding passages.

***

 

The outer chamber of the Observatory is packed crowded with rebel soldiers. It appears that Rax’s grand ‘end of all things’ was as hollow a promise as the rest of his lies.

 _Typical_ , Rae thinks in resigned disgust.

A slow procession of grim faces and tightly held weapons surround her. She stares resentfully at her captors: a motley bunch of humans and aliens, all working together in harmony. Cute. She even sees a few boy-recruits, barely old enough to be imperial cadets. One young man’s leg is trembling slightly, but he doggedly helps to carry Rae’s weight as she’s dragged along.

He's there too, the vermin she’s still itching to get at. She can’t see his face. She isn’t sure if that’s a blessing. She only recognises his red cloak among the crowd, far beyond her grasp.

Around her, no one says a word. Not even Rax deigns to speak.

The rebel forces wait until she’s well enough to walk on her own. How kind of them. As they continue on the way out, they don’t press her for any confessions and they don’t manhandle her in any way.

It slowly begins to rake against her nerves, that cool professionalism of these sorry creatures who dared to cut her vengeance short. It should have been _her_ officers – it should have been the _Empire's_ duty – to lead an example of order and stability. Instead, it’s the Empire that’s descended into chaos. All of it Rax’s doing, of course.

Deep inside, Rae knows she has no right to scoff at other officers, who only adapted to their orders in this dreadful place. She herself was about to execute a traitor without the formal process of a court martial – indeed, she would have relished seeing the deed through, without any regret whatsoever.

To have seen Rax’s spilled guts painting the Observatory’s stairs into a glorious red was the last comfort Rae had hoped to gain in her life.

He had deserved everything he had coming to him.

She does gain one final go at him, though, when the underground passage becomes far too narrow for her captors to navigate through without everyone huddling together in close proximity. They go inside, two by two.

She follows in meekly enough, waiting until the most opportune moment. In a flash, she is bucking wildly and snarling - all military dignity long forgotten - lunging forward to _him_ with no thought nor care as to any consequences.

Rax topples sideways at the unexpected blow.

‘Rae!’ He gasps, in inexplicable delight, his entire visage erupting into a broad smile.

For some strange reason, he uses the brief freedom left to him only to quickly knock down the soldier next to him. He doesn’t even look at Rae as he garbles:

‘Come, we need to -’

She knees him in the stomach and soon she's on top of him again, ignoring the hands of the guards pulling her away. She uses her good hand to rake at his face. He’s cuffed and unable to throw her off.

A high shriek escapes his throat, harsh and vaguely inhuman.

She claws and bites and kicks out, each second of her assault a precious gift, until she finally feels something break beneath her – she thinks it might be Rax's nose, or his cheekbone, or a few of his teeth, or his throat.

Her hair is tugged forcefully back and her ribs are squeezed. The pain is unbearable. She can’t help but to release him, though she hasn’t yet choked the last life out of him.

Rae's feet visibly shake as she is lifted back to her feet.

She vomits a little blood.

She then allows herself to be led, as calm as a nerf doe to the slaughter. As she is quickly ushered away, Rae hears Rax’s single cry still multiplying itself and echoing down the entire length of the Observatory.

Well, that’s it. Her last chance spent.

Nothing to do now but await her final fate.

She hates every footfall leading her back into the muted sunlight of Jakku.

***

 

They’re forced to sit next to each other, trussed up like a pair of nuna at a butcher’s stall.

His face is barely human, distorted as it is into a mess of juicy bruises, exposed pink flesh and rivulets of red dripping down from his jaw. The trickling blood is eagerly lapped up by the thirsty sand. His breaths are ragged and his sides shiver.

He doesn’t speak. Neither does Rae.

The _Ravager_ , it seems, left utter chaos in its final descent. Their cuffs buzz shrilly and their faces sting as motes of sand flicker around them. It’s a real sandstorm out here in the open, whole disrupted skies of unsettled dust, all caused by the defeat of the imperial fleet’s last hopes.

A youngish woman in rebel ground assault gear greets their miserable retinue. She’s been talking to Norra for quite some time, out of Rae’s hearing range.

They are asked many questions as they’re transported to a rickety old landspeeder with rebel insignia freshly painted on its side. Even Norra attempts to converse.

Rae doesn’t reply. Neither does Rax.

If she were to fight now, she would not get far. Besides, she only wants to finish what she started. Slaughtering him is enough for her. But she has been left sitting for too long and is spent beyond all human reckoning, unable to stir out of her stupor: as dead and discarded as her Empire.

The storm around them intensifies. Clouds of sand sway the landspeeder and jolt the passengers. Rax slumps to her side, groaning. She has not the strength left even to shove him away.

Let the storm take them. Let it bury her with her Empire, here in this dead place. And if her body is to share cold dust and greedy flies with _his_ carcass, so be it.

Just let him _die_ already. Why, why, why couldn't they let her cut him down?

As if Norra can hear her thoughts, she hastens her companions to deploy the prisoners within a battered Rebel ship. Everything the rebels own seems ill-kept and inexpertly modified. Yet they won. How strange.

Rae dully leans her bloodied face against the port window.

Outside, Brentin is standing next to Norra. The sand is whipping at their clothes, tugging their hair and stinging at their faces. There's still an uncomfortable tension between them, too, that has no connection to the tumultuous outside elements.

As hollow as her own fate has left her, Rae feels a little sorry for them. Then she meets their eyes and sees only exhausted relief.

To her horror, Rae feels her face twitch and flush in sudden weakness. The grief tears through her, hurting even worse than the unspeakable pain in her fingers and ribs. She manages to cut her dry sobs short and twists her lips into a snarl of resentment instead, but it's already too late.

She sees something like pity cut across the usual distaste in Norra's eyes.

Rae turns her head away, feeling eviscerated.

***

 

By the time it is safe for the rickety ship to lift off, the scuffed plasteel tiles on the bay area are already covered by a fine layer of sand.

Rae stares stonily at the floor, as if divining her future in the shifting grains. In truth, her mind feels as though it is floating somewhere above her, cut off from a mere flesh-and-bones existence. She barely remembers to occasionally blink.

Realising she is beyond hope oddly calms her. Whatever will happen is out of her hands. Time enough to ruminate on her regrets in private, when she’s alone in a cell or standing in front of a firing squad.

Rax is having a rougher time of it. While her greatest wounds are all set deeply, prickling away beneath skin and muscle, his are quite open to the cold air whistling down the length of the passenger bay.

He inhales sharply and bites down exclamations of pain. He tries to shield his cuts by burrowing his face behind her back. She’s that far beyond caring to even think of hindering him, until the ship shudders and his chin hits the exact spot where the stun capsule buried itself into her.

‘Stop’, she hisses, almost involuntarily. She had not planned on speaking to the despicable thing or even acknowledging its existence, not while it is still shackled to her.

He loudly swallows down spit before replying.

‘What is it?’ His voice sounds moist and weakened.

‘You are hurting me’, Rae states without emotion.

Surprisingly, he immediately obliges and shifts his face away from her shoulder. Funny, that. He had not minded breaking her fingers.

The inside of the ship gradually seeps into darkness. The air grows stable.

So. They’ve finally reached orbit.

After a moment, artificial light floods the bay, winking and spluttering into life. The rest of the ride is smooth going after that, with no further orbital challenges for the craft to overtake.

The port window - where it isn’t marred by the print of her bloodied cheek - reveals an unyielding Jakku, still glowing dully against the shimmering blackness of space. Spared from destruction, only to become a graveyard to everything she holds dear.

For a while, Rae watches the Republic’s fleet circling around devastated or abandoned imperial vessels in the hunt for survivors. Wrecked escaped pods are reeled in like silvery fish. A few explosions occur, but the fight is futile: not even that final, spiteful, suicidal wish to go out in a blaze of glory can help the Empire now. There is only scrap metal, broken hopes, and perhaps a few more prisoners to join her ignoble destiny.

She can’t bear the sight and soon shifts her focus back to the floor.

There are criss-crossing scratches all over it, as if heavy equipment used to be ferried across it towards the inner chambers. Weapons-caches, perhaps, or other smuggled contraband.

She’d once been a petty officer overseeing missions like that: the discovery of illegal goods in patched-up merchant vessels. It had made her feel giddy with power, a mere scrap of a girl, to be aware she was fresh out of training and already commanding her own team. Even though it had been just five of them to a single division. Those had been different times.

‘You were right’, Rae remarks suddenly. ‘The Empire is dead.’

Rax twists his ruined face towards her. His eyes are the one unmarred feature still left to him, yet they look about as unfocused and half-conscious as she herself feels.

‘Yes’, he says flatly.

Rae adds:

‘And us soon to join it.’

Rax is silent a long while, pale and corpse-like under the glaring white light. He moves his lips, barely audible against the vibrations of the ship. Not loud enough for their guards to hear.

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Unfit to live’, Rae counters bitterly. She closes her eyes. ‘Both of us. Everything’s gone.’

‘Not yet’, Rax slurs, red ooze trickling from his mouth.

He doesn’t elaborate and Rae doesn’t bite the bait to ask. She’s had enough of _Galli’s_ stories. She has that much dignity left.

They do not speak after that.

By the time they reach the Rebel fleet’s commanding vessel, Rae will have memorised every scrape and irregularity etched onto the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

_how does it feel_  
_to be your own deceiver?_  
_signals raised_  
_then lost to the aether_

***

Aboard _Home One_ , an air of unsuppressed jubilance contrasts the surrounding aftershocks of the battle. Rae barely has time to register Admiral Ackbar’s amphibian eyes bulging out at Norra’s latest catch, before she’s swept away from her captors and hurried down a white passage.

Several rebels throw infantile jibes at her in passing – but no, no, no, she’s got it all wrong. The taunts are aimed primarily at _Rax_ , who is still in his recognisable imperial uniform.

She herself is in fact somewhat disregarded in the area of insults. This makes it simultaneously easier and harder to cope with. It is not that she wants her failures rubbed into her nose by her enemies, exactly, yet it irks her to see the traitor Rax being recognised as the key representative of the Empire, while she who tried to save it tags along as a mere afterthought.

 _Then again_ , Rae admits to herself, _Who would ever guess that this dishevelled, filthy, rag-clothed hag used to be a Grand Admiral?_

As she brusquely marches along, ignoring the pain in her side, she hears faint sobs mingling with the snatches of victory songs. The misery, she notices, emanates from people huddling in quiet corners of the ship: small moments of private mourning, hidden from the view of others. Rae finds herself jealous of that brazen luxury, the freedom to just crawl out of sight and let loose one’s rawest emotions.

‘Mundane tragedies in the midst of a grand finale’, Rax remarks sagely. ‘No wonder they conceal it from their compatriots. To overtly display their suffering would taint a story of glorious valour.’

He pauses, as if in reflection.

‘It’s interesting, how the weakness of a common singularity can, to its own perspective, overcome even the sweeping narrative of success.’

‘Shut up’, says Rae, emphatically.

***

They are not granted even the bare minimum of a containment cell. Those have already been turned into sick bays for the thousands of soldiers arriving with gruesome injuries from groundside battlefields. The ship is slowly becoming overcrowded. The air is scrubbed and recycled at a ferocious speed, so that _Home One_ ’s ventilation shafts begin to whirr with the passage of stale air.

In the middle of the passage, Rae notices a rebel pilot tending to a young imperial captain who has a deep wound bisecting her middle. His manner is both tender and familiar, as if he has known her for years. She’s unresponsive, her comatose state giving her a false air of peacefulness.

 _Another mundane tragedy, as Rax would say_ , Rae thinks. She can’t make herself feel pity. She can’t make herself feel anything.

The scene still tickles the back of her mind, though, even as she is deposited in the corner of what was probably once a mess hall. By the looks of it, it’s recently been turned into an emergency storage room - only to undergo a final, haphazard transformation into a rest area for the ship’s temporarily extended crew.

She receives a quickly-uttered reassurance that her injuries will be attended to as soon as a free medical officer is found. The guard adjusts her cuffs and leaves her a sleeping mat. Thus Rae finds herself tied by one arm to a cooking stove, of all things.

How dignified.

A multitude of unfriendly faces peer at her as she rolls out the mat with her free hand. They cautiously watch her from the scant comfort of misplaced sleeping bunks or other mats on the floor, even from atop crates of ammunition. A scaly alien chitters something to its scar-riddled human companion, who spits at the floor while maintaining direct eye contact with Rae.

Her guard whistles sharply and everyone quickly diverts their attention elsewhere.

Rae sincerely hopes that someone in here will be stupid enough to try easing the tension with a cigarette. She fancies she’d rather like to see _Home One_ torn apart by its own explosives.

Her guard positions himself against a nearby plasteel wall, looking tired but alert. No chance of getting past him at this time, Rae estimates, but she’ll certainly try to reach her intended target at the first available opening.

As if in response to her thoughts of vengeance, Rae spots Rax moving from her: or, at least, only as far away as he is able to, shackled as he is to some kind of machine for dispensing drinks.

An hour of dour, contemplative silence passes between them.

She tries to kick him, when she becomes vexed beyond patience, but only manages to lightly tap his foot with the tip of her toes.

‘Thirsty?’ He asks her in response, his tone all faux cheeriness. He rattles the drinks machine a little, though the effort sets him panting.

‘You only had to ask, Rae. I could try get you some refreshments while we wait.’

Rae smiles coldly.

She’s seen that thin veneer of confidence crack itself asunder on Jakku, mere hours ago. She’s seen the glint of insanity seize upon the impenetrable darkness of his eyes. Rax may be feigning superiority, but his wrecked face is still twitching in nervousness. He cannot fool her.

She knows him all too well now, poor little Galli and his dominion of empty lies.

‘You’re going to be tortured soon’, Rae tells him, matter-of-factly. ‘And then all your secrets will finally be out. We’ll see how confident you will be by then.’

‘Oh, Rae. Do I detect a hint of rebel sympathy?’

Rae sharply sucks her breath in at the insult.

‘You always _were_ better at delivering shock value than competent decisions’, she says in disgust. ‘No, I still despise the so-called New Republic, now as much as ever. I only hope they deliver you the death I could not.’

‘Ah. Is that all _your_ plan was?’ Rax asks, with some surprise.

‘To kill you? Of course it was!’

‘You know, when you attacked that man at the Observatory’, Rax says, a little sulkily, ‘I really thought you were aiming to free us both. That would have been much more sensible.’

‘Free you?’ Rae nearly howls in disbelief. ‘After what you did to me?’

Several heads turn to her, including that of the guard stationed near them. Both Rae and Rax sit quietly a while, in an unspoken mutual agreement, until the hostile attention is finally diverted from them.

‘I thought you wanted to survive’, Rax whispers. Beneath the scratches and bruises, he looks genuinely agitated. ‘You seemed like the kind of person. Aren’t you, Rae? I don’t believe I would have made such a mistake in my assessment of you. We’re alike, aren’t we, in that sense at least?’

‘What kind of person? What are you drivelling on about?’ Rae hisses. ‘How could you, for even one single, miserable moment, think I’d cast everything aside - just to comply with your insane plans?’

Rax shrugs defensively.

‘If you’d really wanted to survive, Rae, you wouldn’t be asking me things like that. A ship comes out of the sky to sweep you away, do you ask where it’s going? You do not.’

Rae stares at him blankly, a sudden cold sweat trickling down her spine.

_He doesn’t know, does he?_

No. He can’t possibly have learned how she had tried to stow away on board a merchant ship as a child. No, he has no way of knowing she was in consequence almost taken away by slavers.

He cannot know, because she never told a living soul.

Rae bites her lip uncertainly.

In return, Rax abruptly lowers his eyes, looking - for the first time since she’s known him - utterly dejected and miserable.

It’s Rae who breaks the encroaching silence.

‘I wanted the Empire to survive this madness’, she swallows painfully, looking at her hands: the two broken fingers are becoming very swollen, she idly notices. ‘Stability and order. Safety, even. That was what first drew me to it.’

She cannot keep her voice from turning a little hoarse. She cannot keep from talking to him, though he makes her guts churn in disgust.

‘You _knew_ that. You knew what it meant to me and you _used_ me to take it all away in favour of blind destruction.’

For once, he doesn’t reply.

‘Your so-called plan was just a childish reaction to failure, wasn’t it, _Galli_? When we could have given the Empire a new beginning… Or at least, _I_ could have.’

‘ _You_ could have, perhaps, if you hadn’t so keenly _deceived_ yourself about the _truth_ of the Empire’, Rax mumbles, turning his head away from her and watching their guard with renewed alacrity.

Rae is too angry to speak.

He dares to presume he understands the Empire better than she does? He, who threw it away like a spoiled child casts away its broken toy?

‘Transience’, Rax adds, in a hushed tone, as if the word means something profound. ‘That’s all it was ever meant to be, from the moment the Emperor died.’

Without further explanation, Rax turns away from her and shifts into a lying position. Rae watches his back hatefully until her own eyelids begin to droop. After some hesitation, she allows herself to rest a while.

There will be time enough to try killing him again. This she promises him, from the depths of what ashes are left of her heart.

***

She’s half-awoken by a jolt. It sends a weak shiver of pain through her. The room has been darkened down and she can’t see much of her surroundings, but a single gleaming light is being focused on her midsection. Before she has time to feel panic, a voice above her captures her attention.

‘Easy does it, Ma’am. We’ll be quick and then you can get some more sleep, alright?’

Rae blinks owlishly under the light and struggles with confusion, momentarily unsure of where she is and what is happening to her. She tries to make out the faces of the shadowy presences around her. They look short and gangly, not very threatening at all. She relaxes a little, until she remembers those children taken from Jakku: the blank-eyed murderers, whom Hux was ordered to train into a new generation of soldiers.

She gasps and tries to stand up, ready to fight anyone who comes too near.

‘Hey, hey! It’s alright. We’ve gently cut away the clothing that was around the wound. We’ll have to clean it all up first, so it doesn’t get infected. Could you lie down for me - or would that be too uncomfortable for you?’

Rae stares more closely at her would-be helpers: a wary-looking girl in her late teens and a diminutive Chadra-Fan dressed up in tiny-sized medical garb. It’s like a joke. She doesn’t dare to ask if this is the best _Home One_ has to offer, or if it’s the best they’ll allow for some measly imperial prisoner.

The absurdity of the girl’s question suddenly hits her.

_What does it matter if I’m comfortable or not? I’m going to be dead soon._

Still, Rae murmurs assent with a stout politeness that catches even herself by surprise. She slowly begins to stretch herself back out onto the floor mat.

‘Don’t you have a cot prepared for her?’ Rax’s low rasp is reproachful.

Rae bristles at the knowledge that _he_ is awake to see her undergoing a vulnerable procedure. His mutilated face is all shadows; his eyes are two sharp points of blackness, watching her with keen interest.

Must he always complicate things for her?

Rae huffs loudly and the familiar pain slices through her side again. The girl misinterprets her annoyance as anger aimed at herself.

‘I’m sorry’, The girl enunciates carefully. ‘I don’t think it’s good to move you anywhere else just now. You’re still haemorrhaging a little-’

‘Set something up for her right here’, Rax demands.

‘Not right this instant, no. Sorry, this isn’t my ship and I don’t know who is on duty for-’

‘Don’t apologise to him, Mindiz’, the little Chadra-Fan tells the girl resolutely, its voice squeaky. ‘You don’t have to take orders from the bucketheads and their like, not anymore. None of us do. Besides, we’re doing the best we can. She’s getting equal treatment to everyone else, isn’t she?’

‘Just do what you were sent to do’, Rae tells them briskly. ‘I don’t care.’

‘You’ll only be getting a bit of antibacterial wash and a deep-absorbing bacta patch, to stop any further damage until you can get proper surgery’, the girl Mindiz says, confidently. ‘We’ll try get you to swallow down two slow-releasing toxabsorbants, too. You don’t happen to know if you’re sensitive to any C-accelero-based chemicals?’

‘Not as far as I know’, Rae says. She shrugs. ‘Whatever. I’ll risk it.’

‘The worst that can happen is a bout of vomiting and dizziness, anyway’, Mindiz explains. ‘Unpleasant, but not life-threatening. If you begin to feel unwell, you can always call someone and they’ll get me to come over and-’

‘That won’t do’, Rax interrupts her flatly. His lack of expression lends a tinge of something vaguely threatening to his demeanour. His dark eyes are like two voids, sucking up any traces of warmth from the people around him.

‘Is this how you treat a key political presence - like some vagrant you picked up from the dirt? I believe a Grand Admiral is entitled to more than quack therapy and residence inside a _kitchen_. Unless this whole charade is a direct order from Ackbar, meant to belittle and humiliate his opponents.’

Rae is struck by his words, in spite of the desire to shut him up. Some part of her recoils from the thought that Rax finds insult in elements of the same routine she’d already gotten used to as a kind of normality. Sleeping rough and the meagre hope of temporarily lessening her pain: what other kind of life is there?

It’s Jakku, she knows. Jakku has peeled away something from within her very soul and she can no longer connect with her dignity. She doesn’t need it, anyway. All she needs is vengeance and a quiet end to her suffering.

‘It’s _not_ quack therapy and I’m only here to help’, the girl tells Rax, her tone suddenly incensed. ‘I used to take those same pills every day, Mister, and they _do_ work. My insides would be pulp by now, otherwise.’

‘Alright, but-‘

‘Stop interrupting me when I talk, please. Poisoned crates of food, _by the way_ , that’s what nearly killed me: distributed by your imperial colleagues and left for the displaced people of Lothal to eat.’

Mindiz smiles grimly.

‘But who cares about us poor homeless _vagrants_ , if it was a chance to kill some rebel insurgents in the process, right? No, I don’t care _who_ I’m helping, as long as I’m healing people. I don’t care if your friend is a sand-drifter from Jakku, or a Grand Admiral, or even Princess Leia’s long-lost sister. I sure know what my job as a nurse means, alright, and I always do my damned best to do it properly.’

Rax smiles and waves a hand in a flourish of defeat, but his eyes are no less suspicious of the rebels as he continues watching their work in silence.

‘Well said, Mindiz’, the Chadra-Fan chitters, glaring at Rax. With cautious little paw-hands, the alien cleans up Rae’s wound. ‘And how’re you doing, Madam Grand Admiral? This sting too much?’

‘It’s perfectly fine’, Rae snaps, supressing the urge to ask Mindiz for details of her ordeal. She has no power to demand inquiries and punishment. And the Empire is dead, regardless. Injustices like this must be left unsettled, with debts unpaid, the Empire’s legacy forever sullied by the misdeeds of a few.

‘And I’m no Grand Admiral, either’, Rae growls.

Rax scoffs.

She turns to him belligerently, wincing as the Chadra-Fan applies a bit of antibacterial foam and Mindiz urgently sticks a bacta patch to the soft bloody pulp of her exposed flesh.

‘It was you made me a Grand Admiral, remember?’ Rae glowers. ‘Well, I cut myself off from all your bullshit when I deserted your wonderful plan for me to be a sitting duck on Chandrila. I’ll not shame myself with any token gifts from you.’

‘You were, technically speaking, never demoted back to Admiral’, Rax sniffs. ‘You can’t erase a rank by willpower alone. You might have returned to the _Ravager_ after Chandrila, you know, and found a fleet happy to obey you.’

‘Don’t you ever again mention the _Ravager_ in front of me! You don’t have the right. You never did. And I certainly don’t care to pretend I have any rank at all, especially after you had me arrested by stormtroopers who _should_ have obeyed _me_ , if I had really been a Grand Admiral. That’s a singular proof of how little my promotion ever meant.’

Instead of looking contrite or even gleeful at her thinly-veiled distress, Rax contorts his face into a look of absolute surprise.

‘I did have you arrested, that’s true’, he says in open-mouthed wonder. ‘Oh, Rae, you really are brilliant!’

‘What?’ Rae blinks.

‘I knew I was right to put faith in you, even when it seemed you were becoming a little, ah, flaky. Oh, Rae, Rae, Rae - well done! That’s a proper devious escape for yourself that you’ve found. I couldn’t be prouder.’

‘Don’t you dare mock me, you slimy little…’

‘Deserter’, Rax tells her proudly, ‘You are officially a deserter, dear Rae. A traitor. We will stick to that. It’s the truth, after all, isn’t it? Oh, but this does give me hope that I can finish what I promised him… No, no, but I fear to work in that direction just now... Too risky. I’ll think of something else. Remind me to have a good, long talk with you when we are quite alone, Rae. All will become clear. All will be glorious.’

Mindiz raises her eyebrows at Rae, questioning.

Rae feels her cheeks heat up. She has no real reason for it, as he’s really not her responsibility - except in the sense that she owes it to her peace of mind to finally kill him. On the other hand, it’s always embarrassing to be near Rax when he is in one of his opaque moods. He makes her feel somehow personally involved in the madness.

‘He’s gone off the deep end, I’m afraid’, Rae mumbles, by way of explanation.

‘Head injury’, Mindiz nods wisely. ‘His face is in quite a state, so I figured there might be damage like that.’

‘No’, Rae sighs. ‘He’s always been like that.’

‘She’s broken two of her fingers’, Rax interjects through gritted teeth, abruptly trying to change the topic. ‘She’ll need a splint, too.’

‘How very observant of you’, Rae says warmly. ‘However did you notice that particular injury?’

Rax thins out his lips to a mere slit and mutters something. It sounds suspiciously like ‘Sorry’, but since Rae isn’t usually given to hallucinations, she discards the reply as a figment of her imagination.

‘Could you give me something for sleep?’ Rae asks the probably-at-least-somewhat-trained medical staff. ‘I don’t think I can stand listening to him just now.’

She brightens at a thought.

‘Unless, of course, you could loosen my cuffs for just one minute, just enough to reach him - and lend me that scalpel…?’

‘No such luck’, Mindiz says, smiling slightly.

‘I figured not’, Rae grumbles.

With one loud sniff of distaste, Rax wraps himself in his magnificent red cape and pretends to go back to sleep.

***

How long they travel and where they end up docking remains a mystery to Rae. She fancies that she can feel the exact moments they leap into hyperspace, for her stomach lurches a little and a pressure builds up in her head, but it’s equally possible it’s only her nerves playing up.

Rae wakes up several more times after she is administered medicine, for the nightmares won’t stop. It is as if everything she's been holding back by sheer mental tenacity is finally starting to pour out from her brain, poisoning her insides and leaving behind only a shameful, feverish, whimpering guilt.

She dreams she’s at a meeting of the Shadow Council, but the assembled officers are all members of the Rebel Alliance.

She dreams she is in orbit and is issuing an order to bomb every civilian outpost on Jakku, in the hopes of flushing out the fleet admiral from his hiding place. She dreams she is nameless, abandoned and afraid.

Rae wakes up shivering and calling out Rax's name: a sore-throated lament of unfinished business.

She dreams that her Empire was a mere exercise in self-deceit, an illusion of peace and order that cracked itself to reveal mindless violence and selfishness.

She dreams she is busily packing poison into food satchels, for all her enemies to find. She dreams she is yelling at poor Mindiz not to eat it – and what nonsense that is, for her mind imagines the holodrama variant of poison, instead of military-grade weapons; it imagines her uncorking rows of translucent bottles filled with a bubbling, viscous green liquid.

She dreams she is a rebel pilot in orange-and-white slacks, choking to death in the thick, heavy smoke of a burning vessel, but determined to kill the Empire before Rax can rebuild it in his image.

Rae wakes up feeling eerily peaceful. She meets his cold dark eyes, curiously near her, and wills herself back to sleep, curling up tightly to keep herself warm.

She dreams of a gaping black hole in the middle of Jakku, where she is being led in chains by a contingent of dark-robed monks. She dreams of struggle and violence and pain, where she is unable to prevent herself sliding ever nearer to the engulfing darkness. The hole in her side trickles and the monks explain that it is this empty wound that makes her the ideal victim. When she dies, outcast, Jakku will be saved.

Rae wakes up sweating. She’s covered by a long red cape. She searches frantically for its owner, but he is out of sight and out of reach.

‘Are you feeling well enough to walk?’ Her guard asks.

‘Yes’, Rae rasps.

‘Admiral Ackbar requested your presence, if you are willing to talk with him off the record.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you care to eat something first?’

‘No.’ She feel nauseous at losing her quarry yet again to physical weakness. ‘Where’s Rax?’

‘He’s already left to speak with the Admiral.’

Rae lurches herself upright, feeling less complaints from her wound than yesterday.

She draws the cape around her shoulders like a shield and lifts her chin up resolutely. If Rax is seeking to lie and cheat his way into achieving rebel leniency towards his punishment, he had better think twice. She is going to expose him and she doesn’t even care if it means she’ll suffer with him too.

‘I am ready’, Rae whispers. ‘Let’s go.’


	3. Chapter 3

_we're rest assured_  
_the dead are true believers_  
_rest assured_  
_we are all believers_

***

 

As she prepares to meet her fate, Rae ponders on her options.

There could be some bleak satisfaction to gain from refusing to divulge any information whatsoever. Zero cooperation. Not a difficult thing to do, either. She knows precious little of the clandestine operations linked to the real running of the post-Palpatine Empire, she admits, regardless of the fact that she was once trumpeted as an imperial leader. Total silence may make her seem more in control than letting loose her tongue ever would, especially since all she can offer is to ramble about half-obscured conspiracies.

Yet there is the matter of personal integrity.

The nightmares she has suffered recently, the ordeals she has survived, even the injured imperial officers she saw propped along the ship (looking like so many hunting trophies awaiting to be stuffed and mounted on a wall) – those are all strong reasons for her to fight on.

As much as she would love to cut Rax down and be shot on the spot for the act of wanton murder, she admits that this particular solution to the question of her future is both simplistic and selfish. For Rae has one advantage to any other living officer in the galaxy: she alone has the guts to expose Rax for what he is, if need be to both sides of the galactic conflict.

Rae alone knows the extent of his treachery.

She knows there will be surviving loyalists to the Empire, billions of them. They have the right to know what putrid rot festered from within and conspired to weaken the system. They must be told that it was not the Empire itself that failed them, only the weak and greedy and mad, who thought themselves above order and discipline.

That is what Rae will do. That is her purpose. And she who has a purpose, has a grasping chance at continuing to live.

Her reverie is interrupted by none other than the contemptible object of her hatred.

‘Rae!’ Rax calls out, halting in the corridor just before he’s led out of her sight. ‘You look better today.’

Rae nods once, wary of him.

‘Excellent. You will now tell everyone how you deserted, in detail. I believe in your success.’

‘You’re looking too pleased’, she tells him. ‘Already took your chance to roll on the floor and beg our little rebel friends for mercy?’

‘I’m glad my cape helped you to rest better, Rae, before an interview of importance’, he smiles brightly. ‘It’s a mesh of reactive synthwool and real nexu fur, you know. Wonderfully warm. You’ll need to be sharp and decisive in there. Remember all those speech lessons you were given – they may come in useful.’

Rae scowls and lets the red cape drop to the floor. She tramples it, with bitter self-awareness of the pettiness of the act. Still, the discomforted expression on Rax's ravaged face is reward enough to make it worthwhile.

‘Poor Galli. I hope you’re not suffering under the delusion that I’ll be of any help to you.’

‘As a matter of fact, I _have_ already spoken to Ackbar about that’, Rax preens, his glinting eyes betraying his annoyance at being called by his proper name. ‘You'll do well enough, I believe, when the facts of the matter are laid out to you. By the way, I told him I was acting alone, of course. Explained you were a militant opponent to my views. A dangerous thorn in my side.’

Rae narrows her eyes, thinking rapidly.

 _What does he think to gain for himself by working to_ my _advantage?_

She doesn’t want to be released if she is to be painted as some… rebel-loving insurgent. Perhaps that is his intention, to discredit her in the eyes of the Empire’s remaining citizens and render the uncovering of his vileness an obsolete mission. Well, he will be very disappointed, because Rae doesn’t plan to shy away from any punishment the New Republic has prepared for her.

Let them slit her throat and space her body after she’s told her story, if only they promise to do the same to him.

‘Oh! I almost forgot to warn’, Rax intones. ‘We are about to get a worthy addition to our line-up.’

‘Who?’

‘A dear and obedient pet, from what I have gleaned.’

‘So spit it out, if you’re so knowledgeable about the future’, Rae fumes. ‘I’ve had my fill of your guessing games.’

‘No mystery. You’ll soon see for yourself’, Rax shushes her, tittering humourlessly.

To her surprise, Rae snaps her teeth right shut. If she responds to him rudely, he’ll try to answer back in kind - and _that_ is a path that can only lead to her bashing his brains out on the floor of _Home One_.

A delightful thought in itself, of course, if Rae had not just decided that she wants to see this whole farce through to its end.

She sidesteps him and hurries down the corridor, her guard stumbling to catch up.

She’s eager to see if her conjectures will turn out to be reality. There will be the signing of a peace treaty (which she will decline to do, if asked to participate). There will be a hopefully _public_ trial of key imperial commanders (which she will subtly shift towards her own agenda, if her words are to be broadcasted to the galaxy). There will perhaps be an execution (which she will undergo with the calm carelessness of one to whom death is sweet release).

Rae has decided well: she will remain collected, professional and confident in her rightfulness.

She owes that much to the Empire she served.

***

 

Rax finds himself in a neat little cell, probably cleared out during the night cycle for the sole purpose of housing him. It is unfortunate he will not be seeing much of Sloane until he is brought down to some planet-side secure facility, but he respects this opportunity to fine-tune his thoughts alone.

Rae Sloane is a worthy distraction indeed, a burning star of a woman, but she can grow a little overwhelming when one has prolonged exposure to her.

He begins to shake his leg in a rapid rhythm and quietly hums a jaunty tune. Something simple and debonair, from a mediocre but catchy little operetta he had finally indulged in some months ago.

 _Despair_. It claws at the back of his mind, seeking a way to snatch the breath from his lungs. He knows it would be all too easy for him to give in now and consider the Contingency a failure half-bred out of his own arrogance and ineptitude. He keeps that at bay by focusing on a shining new hope.

Well, well, well. So Rae Sloane had succeeded in stopping him at the Observatory and now she seeks to snuff out his life. It almost pleases him. He thinks surviving that bone-dry wasteland gives her a passing grade in the tests of flexibility and tenacity. After all, returning to Jakku left its mark even on him who best knows the place: he feels hollowed up and mentally rattled just from encountering the familiar sights and sounds. 

Rax ignores the stinging cuts across his face and lies down, examining the blank ceiling.

His very insides squirm with the mental self-flagellation his subconscious is trying to make known to him.

 _A skittermouse_ , he thinks; he is no better than a fucking skittermouse. He really was only ever an unprepared, skittish prey animal running across the sand, unable to prevent the talons swooping in to impale him, and now he’s trapped in a cage.

Yet the fact remains that the game is not _quite_ over. A few figures still remain on the shah-tzeh board and it is up to him – if he is to _become_ worthy of any legacy at all – to successfully manoeuvre everything to an ending before flipping the whole board upside down.

So he hadn’t blown up the rebel fleet. Who cares? The truly important thing is that the imperial fleet was not discovered to have left for the Unknown Regions. The New Republic would have reinvented themselves a hundred times over, anyway, by the time it took for the new imperial order to recuperate. A smattering of old ships and still older commanders is hardly an advantage, when imperial retaliation is to arrive decades later.

Palpatine always played an excruciatingly long game. It is up to the Outcast to continue it at all costs.

Imprisonment is but a temporary hurdle in his path. In some ways, it is also a new beginning.

He can fix things up with Sloane this time, do everything as it was supposed to happen the first time around. Already she is talking to him without that wild, murderous look in her eyes. She still wants him dead, oh yes, and might feel that way for the rest of her life – but it is quite one thing to _desire_ something, and quite another to actively _pursue_ it.

He will have plenty of time to evaluate Sloane in the months to come, in any case, if Mon Mothma was sincere in her promises this morning. The politician had seemed surprised by his odd requests, but he had asked for so little and in return offered so much. It would be unproductive of them not to comply, when the alternative would mean history running its natural course. Without a cease-fire order issued by an imperial authority, the fight on Jakku will rage on until it peters out. Extinguishing the remaining flames without his help would claim more rebel lives than is strategically sound. He saw to that himself, when he had those unfortunates trained and left to safeguard what they believed to be the Empire's last hopes.

Even so, that was not all he offered Mothma. Oh yes, he will make himself a worthwhile imperial source. Another leftover of the Operator role he once held.

Sloane will hate his trade with the New Republic when she finds out, but that too is a calculated gamble.

He paces the cell a while, still humming. He indulges in flipping through a datapad they have left him. He ignores the slew of information it holds: they would leave nothing of worth to a prisoner. It looks fairly standard and even has a manageable music library. Enough to get him by.

He turns on the audio and examines the sample music, searching for the only file that matters. Oh, not bad by half: there's enough here for him to make a real _statement_.

A vague idea forms.  
It relies on Rae's cooperation, which is risky, but when have any of his recent plans not contained that implicit element to them?

In ideal circumstances, Sloane and himself will work to one another's advantage. He will learn about her. She will learn about him, the _real_ him, if there is anything worth learning there.

In the worst case scenario, one outcast will have to devour the other to ensure the success of Palpatine’s game. On Jakku, Rax already found himself willing to let Sloane go, if that was the price to pay. He would have stranded her and left to finish his orders, safe in the knowledge that a part of her would always keep breathing down his neck even after her death.

He was a little uncertain, even a little _afraid_ , of the very real possibility of what would happen if the roles were reversed. If the price to pay was his own death, would he have the strength to abandon his own destiny and hand it over to her? That was what had gnawed at him through half the sleepless night.

He has no such qualms now, because he saw how she thrashed and twitched in her sleep. He saw the minute details of her ferocity of will, as she spun herself through the very worst her mind kept spitting out at her in the dead of night. Finally, he heard her wake up calling his name through her teeth.

He had covered her with his cape, shaking with a profound and almost holy relief at the realisation. For he knew then, with undeniable certainty, that she would forever carry the ghost of him wherever she went.

For Rax, that is enough.

If the time ever comes when he is worn out beyond help, when he is deemed unworthy to live… When he must put aside his fears and make a leap of faith… He _will_ trust to Sloane to take on his mantle and continue his work.

Rax stops humming and lets out a long, shuddering sigh. His hands are shaking. He’s just _that_ good at coming to a heartfelt resolution.

And so his best bet to turn the tide is to make himself as useful as possible to her. Allow things to happen as they were destined to. For all her big talk of mourning the Empire, Rax believes that he saw her correctly for what she is: a survivalist like him, a person overlooked and underestimated due to the crude limitations of society.

 _An outcast_ , he thinks fondly. A surge of self-pity overcomes him and he weeps for joy. _Like me!_

***

 

An unpleasant revelation greets Rae in front of Ackbar’s quarters: among the crowd of onlookers, Brentin Wexley is present, and he too is wearing cuffs.

Unable to stop her flow of thought, Rae smiles privately at Rax’s description. There is something to be said about Brentin being an obedient pet. Ridiculously eager to prove himself and loyal to a fault.

Norra is standing next to her hitherto-estranged husband, her face a tight mask of discomfort. It makes Rae feel a dose of sympathy for the woman, to be so personally entangled in the company of someone who lost his bearings on reality. Though Brentin only carried out a political assassination attempt under duress, while Rae’s own compatriot ended up killing a whole galaxy of order and stability.

‘Your people must be mad to still think him an imperial agent. Brentin’s one of yours, through and through’, Rae says indignantly. ‘That much was clear even to me.’

Brentin gives her a look bordering on gratitude.

‘He escaped after Chandrila and travelled with you’, Norra shrugs coldly, chewing on her lip. She touches Brentin’s shoulder lightly. ‘Just a matter of precaution, I’m sure. We will sort the matter out. I’ll contact Sinjir and see what’s going on…’

‘Norra's team member Sinjir works for Mon Mothma's offices now’, Brentin murmurs. Rae raises an eyebrow.

‘A torturer becoming a politician? I’m relieved I don’t intend to participate in the future of the New Republic’, she says scathingly. ‘But if she trusts a man like him, I think you have little to fear for yourself, Brentin.’

‘I don’t blame _anyone_ for mistrusting _me_ ’, Brentin smiles self-depreciatingly. ‘I still have the chip implanted, too, so who knows what atrocity I might commit next...’

The door panel slides open before Brentin can delve further into his paranoia and Rae gratefully lets herself be ushered inside Ackbar’s admiral’s quarters.

Apart from the Mon Calamari admiral himself and his closest associates, the meeting table flickers with several holographic presences. Rae recognises the shrewd face of Mon Mothma at the centre, looking more harrow and severe than last Rae saw her. She wonders carelessly what Mothma thinks of her own appearance, a grand admiral turned desert wanderer.

‘Might as well blame as slave for the whip its master brandishes’, Rae says, in place of a greeting. It feels good to have some blameworthiness to throw at their feet. ‘If you’re now accusing mind-controlled drones for the mastermind’s actions.’

 ‘Drones… You speak of Brentin Wexley?’ Ackbar asks, rousing his great head from his dewlaps. ‘The mastermind, of course, being your fleet admiral?’

‘For all the good it did him’, Rae sneers. ‘I suppose every charlatan gets exposed, sooner or later.’

Ackbar blinks once at the venom in her tone and garbles out: ‘We believe Wexley to be a victim.’

‘Of course.’

‘He will be deemed safe as soon as our surgeons take a look at him’, a Mon Calamari officer wearing a captain’s insignia pipes up. ‘Precautions must be taken until then.’

‘As you say’, Rae smiles humourlessly.

‘This meeting is an informal request at cooperation’, Mothma interrupts. It is clear her real interests lie far from small fry like Brentin Wexley. ‘If you should wish to await a formal tribunal hearing, we are of course ready to follow protocol.’

‘Where may I sit?’ Rae asks.

She’s shown to a white revolving chair. It's comfortable and has not quite grown cold yet. She wonders if this is the exact seat where Rax lounged while bargaining with his captors.

‘Let us be frank with each other from the start’, Mothma continues. ‘No one expected you to turn up alive, Grand Admiral.’

‘I’m very glad to see you again, too.’

‘Hah! From the information we’ve gathered so far, there seems to be a lot unsaid about the events preceding the battle at Jakku. Indeed, preceding the so-called peace talks, which you yourself had the pleasure of attending.’

Rae says nothing, merely nods.

‘It may be months before we fully piece together the last few days. We would also use this opportunity to pursue certain topics that were interrupted at Chandrila.’

‘Will you allow me to murder Rax?’ Rae yawns.

Mon Mothma pauses. She smiles before replying:

‘Not quite.’

‘Then I have no interest in aiding you’, Rae says forcefully.

‘In that case, you may find your bargaining window somewhat narrowed down.’

‘And covered with prison bars’, drawls a man standing at Mothma’s side, halfway out of sight. Sinjir Rath Velus, probably. The smartass.

As if Rae cares about any purported justice the Rebel Alliance cares to dole out for her. She settles for showing the fullness of her contempt by piercing each of her opponents with a steady gaze, unyielding and unamused by their paltry hints of leniency.

The holo image of Mon Mothma sighs softly and pinches the bridge of her aquiline nose, looking weary.

‘You don't need this, Grand Admiral. This… dogged attitude can only harm you, and others.’

‘On the contrary, I can already feel it doing me good.’ Rae keeps her voice at a glacial level of coolness.

‘And Admiral Rax-’

‘He's no one’, Rae rasps, before she's even properly decided to break her silence. ‘Let me kill him and you can take whatever you want from me: on the condition that everything I say is shown on public record. No more lies. No more hiding. What he did must become known.’

‘You blame him for the defeat at Jakku.’

Rae nods vigorously, her sore neck creaking under the effort of the movement. ‘More than that, I blame him for the attempted use of a previously hidden superweapon. One fit to destroy both our fleets, and the planet itself into the bargain.’

'I see.’

‘From what Norra Wexley has already reported, she speaks the truth’, Ackbar remarks to Mothma. He turns his fish-like eyes to Rae. ‘You say he alone commanded at Jakku?’

‘Of course’, Rae snaps briskly.

‘Yet from what the rank alone suggests…’

‘A lower title than mine?’ She already knew what claims they would question. How obliging of Rax to share enough to alert her of cross-examinations. ‘Yet he did work alone, quite contrary to any of my own orders. Very well, then. Call him _Counsellor_ Rax, if you so prefer. That’s how he fashioned himself in my absence.’

‘Before your escape, he was subservient to your orders, was he not? After all, _you_ were the commanding officer at the time of the Chandrila attack.’

‘His own idea, that too, I’m afraid.’ Rae’s smile is brittle, but as sharp as a loth-wolf’s maw. 'I admit it. I had...difficulties with maintaining my leadership.'

‘That I find harder to believe’, Mothma says, her pale eyes burrowing into Rae’s face, as if trying to glean some insight from her expression alone.

‘I would have offered you no treaty, you know, if I had any choice in the matter. If cornered into it, I would have launched a real military attack. Fleet against fleet. Ship against ship. Bombardment from the skies. Proper warfare, as determined by my professional training, not some petty spy’s handbook on political assassinations.’

‘Perhaps in ordinary circumstances you might have’, Ackbar replies. ‘The Empire has proven again and again that it is not beneath subterfuge. The end justifies the means, for your kind, does it not?’

‘Admiral Ackbar’, Rae snaps, her patience at an end. ‘Have you no military analysts on board your ship to profile me? Since when have _I_ been known to prefer using subterfuge to meet my goals?’

It is not the strict truth, but it does not even matter. Her voice oozes with disgust. Some of it reaches even Ackbar’s thick skull, for the amphibian nods slowly and retreats with a loud _harrumph_ from his throat.

‘We shall see. In any case, you will be given a fair trial.’

‘That’s what they keep telling me’, Rae remarks, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice. Perhaps Rax’s empty bravado really is a contagious madness. ‘If they repeat the lie often enough, I suppose it must become true.’

‘ _I_ will guarantee the fairness of the process!’ Ackbar bristles, raising himself to stand to his full imposing height. ‘On my own honour and life, I promise you will be heard out.’

‘Promise me something else!’ Rae hisses. ‘Promise me but one thing, and I’ll cooperate to the fullest.’

‘Name it’, Mothma says idly.

‘If you will not allow me to have my due, at least give me this: when it’s time for Rax to die, see to it that I am present.’

Mon Mothma gives her a strange look. ‘You know, that is exactly what he asked for, too.’

‘I’ve no doubt’, Rae snorts. ‘He would enjoy getting me out of the way. I’ll take it that my execution is one of his requests?’

Mothma shakes her head very thoughtfully. ‘No, quite the opposite. He seemed very adamant that you are innocent. We've just had a very strange conversation with him. He has offered to arrange a cease-fire, through several active agents of his, in the remaining pockets of resistance we are encountering from imperial remnants. On Jakku and elsewhere. That would be an ideal outcome to preserve our own forces, for we have been met with pointless, mindless violence at these difficult points. Yet Chandrila has taught us to be wary of the man’s offerings.’

‘It taught me the same’, Rae says bitterly.

‘Do you know…’ Mothma bites her lip, pausing. ‘He claims to have sole knowledge of several highly-classified imperial projects, which may prove of immense interest to the New Republic?’

There is an expectant pause.

‘He might be telling the truth’, Rae admits reluctantly. ‘I accessed his files and no amount of security clearance - or illicit snooping around - ever so much gave me more than a bare glance at his past. I nearly died uncovering even that. I was looking for... answers. All I figured out was that his previous work was off-limits to all but Palpatine’s innermost circle.’

‘He has agreed to divulge these secrets, on one condition…’

‘He will be freed’, Rae says in raw disbelief. Her heart stops for a moment, until her very being overflows with rage. ‘After everything he did, you will allow him to leave!’

‘No’, Mothma whispers. ‘He will be going nowhere. And I must tell you right now that neither will you.’

‘What does he want?’ Rae feels her voice gain a higher pitch, outrage battling with confusion. She does not care that they mean to keep her locked away: she needs to know what they will allow him to get away with.

‘He wants to talk to you. He would allow us to monitor the conversations, of course, but that was his one condition. He will divulge all he knows only if he can directly say it to you.’

‘That’s…’ Rae does not know what to say. He’s insane. He’s laying out something else. By all she knows of him, this is only a theatrical curtain to obscure his real intents. He’s dangerous.

She says lamely: ‘That’s highly irregular.’

‘It does seem like a trap’, Ackbar agrees. He shrugs. ‘Still, we accepted. What harm can he do by holding a one-on-one conversation in a highly secure environment? With a human who so clearly hates him?’

‘Would you be interested?’ Mon Mothma asks Rae, disarmingly direct. ‘Perhaps you will find the answers to what you were looking for, too. Some knowledge of the truth, at least, for us to tie up this whole ugly ending to what will be remembered as a tumultuous period in galactic history.’

‘The truth’, Rae says quietly. She considers it. ‘Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…’

***

 _The dead have it easy_ , Rae thinks, glumly curled up in her new cell. It is a neat, austerely furbished space, with a narrow cot and a brightly-lit reading desk. It is much like something she would have chosen for herself: clearly they mean to butter her up in the hopes of her accepting their (Rax’s, really) strange proposition.

Yes, the dead have it easy, to retain their integrity beyond moral dilemmas. There are no quandaries left of interest to the late Governor Tarkin, whose ashes float somewhere in the space once occupied by Alderaan and the first Death Star. There are no more threats Lord Vader would care to eliminate and no opposing powers for Emperor Palpatine to desire conquering.

They may rest easy, those great and duly-remembered dead, knowing no regrets. Their beliefs may remain intact, unchanged, immutable. She wishes she could belong among their ranks, an honoured epitaph on the tombstone of a great civilisation.

But she never will.

She is alive and fallible, a woman who lost her chance at greatness. Death would have offered her a clean, honourable solution. She would have become frozen in time, forever remaining a respectable and hard-working officer of the Imperial Navy.

What does _life_ offer someone like Rae Sloane? Much less.

A cowardly retreat into obscurity or a final confrontation with her greatest enemy - a dubious feat, that, which may end in yet more loose ends or lead to further humiliation for Rae.

What will she discover? Will she find her belief in the Empire shaken, if a despicable man like Gallius Rax really is the keeper of the Emperor’s greatest secrets?

Will she uncover something worth digging out?

A thrill shudders through her.

Rae knows it is probably a false lead, an empty promise – what else can Rax offer, with his aptitude for deceit?

The truth is, she _wants_ to believe she can achieve something by opposing him. She cannot walk away from this mess with her head held high, leaving behind a chance that he might have something of real value. Something that he is willing to trade in to the New Republic in order to save his own neck.

Once more, she finds herself dragged into a complex web of possibilities. This time, however, she has enough insight to know she is merely an insect being dangled at the end of a thread. It remains to be seen what manner of monster her struggle will draw out from the shadows.

 


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

_are you dangerous?_  
_found your way to my bed_  
_spend fewer nights with the living_  
_than I do with the dead_

***

 

The surgery of Grand Admiral Rae Sloane goes well. The damages she already caused herself by spending all that stolen time living in rough conditions with a blasterbolt wound – that’s mended easily enough with modern technology, if not painlessly.

She is first slapped onto a steel table, attended to by medical droids flashing various specialised implements on their many appendages. Her old uniform, already altered into a vagabond’s garb by her prolonged stay on Jakku, ends up shredded into textile for recycling.

She’s issued a pale frock and given a thorough rinsing with disinfectant foam before she’s sedated and cut into. Her lower ribs are rearranged and her internal bleeding lessens after all the stitching is put into place.

Later, while she’s still sleeping the procedure off, she’s transferred to a bacta tank.

New growth slowly knots itself within her healing abdomen, striking relentless jolts of sharp discomfort. A supply of fresh synthblood and nutrients circulates seamlessly down the many tubes she’s connected to. Waste goes out through gastrointestinal catheters.

She flickers in and out of self-awareness, her mind a dreary haze of bad memories and uncurbed distress. Rae hates being shut inside the glass block of thick watery ooze, like some fish in an aquarium, to be ogled at by her sparse visitors – both imagined and real.

 _Leave me alone_ , she wants to say, at times feeling more petulant than depressed.

That’s a good sign, at least, those surges of rage. She will need all the righteous anger she can muster, to carry her through dissecting Rax’s mind in the hollow hope of uncovering anything of value.

She’ll need copious amounts of self-restraint, too, when Mothma’s slick-tongued political brethren start grilling her with questions about the final days of the Empire.

All in all, Rae decides, there _are_ some minor benefits to lying suspended in goo with no active assignments to eat away at her few remaining nerves.

***

 

Nights are the worst. She doesn’t see the point to them, either: she’s far from any natural diurnal cycle, here within the windowless medical chamber. The room is still periodically dimmed down, regardless of her complaints on the matter, presumably so that she can rest and heal.

All it really achieves is a certain surreal emptiness.

Just her and her thoughts, floating in liquid space. The blinking lights of the tank’s display cast wavering shadows all along the walls. A private shadow theatre, a play of light and darkness, for her eyes to misinterpret and for her brain to churn out into upsetting figments of a strained imagination.

She slumbers and the dead face of Adea Rite flickers out accusingly from her memory. Even more disturbingly, she sometimes dreams she’s talking to the girl, the traitor, still giving her out tasks and expressing occasional pride at how well they are completed.

At other times, she’s young again - Rae the bright-eyed aide - paying rapt attention to Governor Tarkin’s cryptic warnings on discipline and sacrifice, on what it means to become a hunter of relevant information in the maze of pitfalls that await a diligent officer. He was a bright man, Tarkin, almost a mentor in the rare moments he cared to openly express interest in his underlings.

On one occasion, she witnesses the explosion of a crystalline moon, as narrated by the smooth-toned vocabulator of the cyborg Vidian, who she had had executed years ago. Thankfully, the Count’s visits to her memory are infrequent: he sticks to prowling around jerkily and flexing his metallic limbs, the glow of his eyes amplified by the screen monitoring Rae’s heartbeat. His complaints towards her vary from remarking upon her personal inefficiencies to pointing out how bacta tank fluids, if they were ever to be used as surface-cleaning agent, would violate no less than three industrial safety measures.

Rae groans. Of all the tortures she expected her mind to dole out for her, _boredom_ was not one.

On another occasion, she’s caught by smugglers and sold to serve in the intestines of a freight ship, where she drudges away at fixing connectors and wiping away excess oil. She escapes, too, only to end up in captive service to Niima the Hutt.

Mostly, though, Rae’s feverish meanderings into the past produce only tiresome recollections.

Battles rage on and she dies in each one. A hundred training matches, which she loses; a thousand more quiet classroom lectures, droning on and on about imperial economics and five-year-plans for military tech upgrades. Often it’s time to take her final exam (‘A History of the Battle of Jakku’) and she realises in horror that she’s retained insufficient knowledge to pass it.

It’s such mundane moments that stick out the worst: a retinue of ghosts from her past, with little of use to say and even less to comfort her with.

Once, and only once, the shadows give birth to a phantom-like simulacrum of Rax. On that occasion she kicks back against the glass partition and gasps awake. Her mouth fills with the thick bacta liquid, tasting like slightly acerbic water. She panics and disables her breathing apparatus, nearly drowning herself in the process.

Not that the New Republic would allow that to happen, oh no – her little nurse is very quick to arrive to the scene on that particular occasion. Rae is soon left safely suspended again, surrounded by the bubbling healing chemical and her own boiling fears.

***

 

On this day, she has a real visitor. Two, in fact. She avoids meeting their eyes.

‘This is my son’, Brentin repeats mildly. ‘Temmin. Norra says she’s sorry she couldn’t come. Previous arrangements.’

Rae forces down the horrible apprehension that paralyses her.

Does Brentin already know? Surely they must have spoken about her before going in to see her. Yet if he knew she had once nearly caused his son’s death, would he really be up to treating her as an ally?

<We’ve met>, she mouths curtly into her breathing apparatus, which translates her silent words into blue-glowing letters on the bacta tank monitoring screen.

In return, Temmin merely smiles. It’s a proper sardonic teenager’s grin and she knows she deserves it.

A sliver of something like guilt worms its way into Rae: she may think of the Rebellion as little more than a set of bungling thugs masquerading as revolutionary liberators, but she’s grown to respect the Wexleys. Her own… behaviour, regarding their son, left a certain something lacking in the area of human decency. She can admit to that now.

<Very regrettable business>, Rae stumbles awkwardly, twisting around in the dense liquid as she considers how much to say. <Given a chance to go back, I would do things differently.>

That is probably a lie – she knows she would have killed young Adea if she could choose again, so there is no reason why a rebel boy would be any different. What is she supposed to say to him, anyway? ‘Hey kiddo, sorry I ordered you to be thrown off a roof’?

Fortunately, Temmin spares her of further agonising tiptoes into the unexplored realm of apologies.

‘Dad told me how you helped him’, he says politely. ‘On Jakku. He said you’re not so bad.’

<A high praise indeed. Forgive me if I don’t get a little teary-eyed.>

Temmin snorts.

 _It was more like he helped me_ , Rae thinks, but doesn’t say anything to the Wexley males. It’s undeniable, Brentin _had_ been useful to have around. It’s unusual to feel any connection to him beyond the mutual drive for revenge, but she finds herself privately wishing him well in his new chance at life.

<Are you free to go home?> Rae asks Brentin.

‘Home…’ Brentin’s face becomes a little sickly. ‘It will really be something to see Akiva again. Soon, I suppose. They’ll need to remove the chip first. Until then, I’m in a sort of limbo. Not suspect enough to detain in a cell, but not harmless enough to release into society.’

<Can’t they get that done here? The chip?>

‘Even if brain surgery was something I’d care to get done on a warship instead of a proper clinic, I’d rather put my future personality in the hands of the people who fixed up all the others released from Ashmead’s Lock.’

‘Until then’, Temmin says reluctantly, ‘Mom actually said that... Dad might be safest sticking around you. She isn’t happy about the whole situation, but I think she’s right. If you saw anything odd going on in his behaviour - anything at all different from how he was back on Jakku - you’d probably be the first to pick it out.’

Temmin squirms, a little embarrassed, a little apologetic. ‘After all, you’re the one who spent the most time with him since the prison and all... Mom doesn’t know how to feel about that, but she said she trusts Dad.’

For a moment, Rae is naïve enough to buy into the story. She’s softened enough to even feel sorry for Norra, for the mixed feelings a wife might have at realising the superior insights a stranger might have about her own spouse. Yet Rae has grown sharply suspicious. It’s impossible not to sense the truth beneath the weak, touchy-feely emotional cover the Wexleys have prepared for her.

<I know what’s really happening. You are sending your father to spy on me>, Rae mouths out, furious.

‘What do you mean?’ Temmin takes on a convincing expression of injury.

<They are using Brentin’s acquaintance with me to check that I’m not pulling some double-crossing stunt against the New Republic.>

‘Yes and no’, Brentin says, wincing at her expression. ‘I mean, yes, but that’s only half of what I’m supposed to be doing.’

<Pray tell.> She somehow manages to fit all her frustration into two syllables, for the screen letters blink a vivid red instead of the usual blue.

‘Look… They would have found other ways to monitor your behaviour anyway. The initial idea was to form a predictive behavioural-analysis program, using data from video observations and information given by character witnesses. However, it seems you don’t have many well-meaning allies or family members willing to talk about you. No close friends at all, in fact. Apart from me, I guess.’

<Well fuck you too, Brentin.>

‘I’m not happy about it either’, Brentin shrugs. ‘But really, you have to admit, they do have a point. You aren’t exactly the most open of people. You’ve given them no reason trust you, either. It makes sense from Mothma’s perspective. And besides, I’m in no hurry to go home just yet. I left to much damage the last time I returned to my family.’

‘That isn’t true’, Temmin blurts out. He has the awkward face of a teenager bordering on adulthood, Rae notices: a half-formed stubble of a beard and a firmly set jaw, against wide eyes and boyishly messy hair. Right now, he sounds just like a little kid unable to be disappointed by its father.

Brentin gives him a reassuring pat.

‘We’ll make things right, son. If we take smaller steps, Norra and I, we both think it’ll be easier for us to… reunite. As a real family. It’s going to take a big effort to make up for all the years we’ve lost, but we’re going into it this time with our eyes open and our minds set to it.’

Rae sighs into the breathing apparatus, feeling out of place in these domestic matters. She rarely feels the sting of loneliness, but the presence of these two makes her feel oddly grateful that she will not be entirely alone in the events to come. Perhaps she can find further use for Brentin - and even the son, if she is clever enough. They certainly seem determined to treat her like an old comrade of Brentin's. A bit of tolerance born out of relief, there. They won. They probably would not be half as nice to her if they thought she would go free.

<I will see you again>, Rae cuts their family reunion nonsense abruptly short. <I take it you will be acting as my guard?>

‘Not exactly. A covert prisoner, really. Incarceration is… something I have experience with. That’s the other half of what they expect me to do. They also need someone to keep an eye on things without rousing the suspicion of other imperial inmates. To the rest of the galaxy, I’m a loose cannon bent on taking down the New Republic, remember? I’d like to use my current reputation to try ferret out any potential allies Rax might still have up his sleeve. If they don’t figure me out first…’

‘They’d better not try do anything to hurt you’, Temmin says, scowling in a way that makes him look ridiculous instead of threatening.

<Not to worry. I will be there to take care of him>, Rae mouths wryly. <I used to be a boxing champion. I’m eager to practice.>

Temmin opens his mouth to protest.

‘Hopefully it won’t come to anything like that’, Brentin says quickly, trying to usher his son out of the chamber. ‘It was good to see you again. I’m glad you are healing well.’

<The real damage is in here>, Rae points to her head and shakes it roughly, as if dispelling bad thoughts. Her long hair swirls in the bacta liquid like the tendrils of some magnificent sea creature.

‘It certainly is’, Brentin mutters, wrinkling his own trauma-bearing brow.

With that, the Wexley family exits in thoughtful silence, leaving Rae to figure out how to adjust her tactics.

This whole enterprise is shaping up to be a lot more complex than Rae ever imagined. Foolish of her to assume otherwise. She’ll need to hone up on her deductive skills, if she is to have a chance of beating Rax at his own game.

For this round, she has gained allies who hate him with equal fierceness.

 _Friends, I might call them_ , Rae thinks.

It’s an interesting concept.

***

 

Their first meeting does not go as expected. What rankles Rae in hindsight is that it’s her who derails the interview into unprecedented territory.

She is summoned to talk to him on his request. She’s roused from her sleep and bugged with various monitoring and information-absorbing devices while she’s still in her nightgown. She’s decked out with high-focus camera lenses on both her eyes and a security alarm that can be activated by a wiggle of her toe.

She dresses herself into civilian wear as quickly as possible, her muscles still feeling a little weak from the long days inside the bacta tank. Even standard gravity feels like a drain on her sapped energy.

 _Go figure_ , she thinks viciously. _He absolutely knew the best moment to catch me unprepared._ _Bastard._

To all appearances, Rax is still… Rax. His face bears the signs of their last fight, a multitude of half-healed cuts and bruises, yet it is once more recognisable as his own. He’s a little unshaven and uncombed, but his civilian clothes are carefully arranged and his old cape is thrown jauntily over his shoulders. He isn’t surrounded by the old luxuries, either, like indoor gardens or apartments filled with expensive junk like aquariums of exotic fish, but he somehow manages to make even a cell look like a creative studio.

Rae allows her eyes to briefly sweep over the place before entering. There’s a little red pillow on his cot and a scarlet quilt decorated in traditional Naboo patterns. He has his datapad propped into an audio speaker. Rae didn’t get any things like that in her own cell. She does have a datapad, true, but mostly it’s filled with generic stuff like safety manuals for ship parts or short fiction clips for the terminally bored.

Rax’s datapad clearly has music on it.

She braces herself for an operatic overture announcing her arrival, but the room remains blissfully silent. He sits himself down opposite her at a plain white table. His white teeth flash in greeting, but his eyes are as shrewd and calculating as ever.

Rae waits for him to speak first. He spends a few moments watching her, taking his time, as if appraising her renewed appearance.

‘Good morning, Rae’, he finally chirps out.

‘It’s the middle of the night, asshole.’

‘Is it? I am so sorry. I was feeling inspired to share, you see.’

‘Go ahead’, Rae motions with her bandaged hand. ‘I’ve all the time in the world.’

‘Well, not quite’, Rax says, frowning slightly. ‘I need you to understand that it is of the utmost importance for you to apply your best mind to our conversations. What little progress I hope to gain must be achieved through a certain time frame, otherwise we can just…’

He makes an elaborate gesture with his hands and then throws them dismissively to the air, as if signifying an opportunity thrown away into nothingness.

‘You do realise your half-baked thoughts are going to be passed on by me and thoroughly analysed by the ship's military personnel?’

‘Oh, by all means’, Rax smirks. ‘Let them amuse themselves. It’s only important that we two understand each other perfectly.’

‘Rax, I do hate to break it to you’, Rae sighs, ‘But I don’t think there’s a living being qualified to understand you. The Force knows _I_ never could.’

‘No matter. That is why we are here’, Rax consoles her. ‘I envisioned this as a little introduction, you see, an informal prelude into what I expect of you in these sessions.’

He clicks on his datapad. Music begins to play. _The Cantata of Cora Vessora._

Rae feels her temples begin to throb.

***

 

‘You met Kobol, didn’t you?’ Rax abruptly questions.

‘That's right. I sought him out. The old man on Jakku, who knew you back when you were just Galli.’

‘Just Galli. Yes. I was that. I stabbed him to death, you know’, Rax confides. ‘He deserved it very much, old Kobol. He was not a very good caretaker to us children, I’m afraid. Jakku does not breed kindness - and I always pay back in kind.’

‘Will this conversation become a point-by-point presentation of the woes of your boyhood? If so, might I persuade you to tell it to a droid instead?’ Rae yawns. ‘They rarely have the tendency to fall asleep in the absence of motivating stimuli.’

‘Not to fear’, Rax snorts. ‘I’m coming to my point. You know the Plaintive Hand? That plateau was where I was first initiated into Palpatine’s service, three decades ago.’

Rae listens. She takes in the story of the stowaway boy Galli, caught and interrogated by Palpatine. She learns of the excavations at the Observatory and the protective measures of secrecy led by Galli, which included the murder and burial of trespassers.

 _May the Force save me_ , she thinks, mesmerised. _When he talked of escaping inside a spaceship, I really thought he was talking about me. I must never let_ him _know, because he of all people just might understand._ That _really would become unbearable._

Rax ends the story with details of his interviews with Palpatine after he was taken off-world: the fears of being himself killed once he had fulfilled his initial usefulness, the trepidations of his training and subsequent role as the Operator, the shah-tzeh torture session that ends with the promise of a Contingency.

‘As you can see, it took Palpatine many tests to decide upon finally bestowing me the role of the Outcast’, Rax says diffidently. ‘I suppose there were others before me, too, from similar benighted worlds, who might not have succeeded as I did. You understand the importance of tests now, don’t you, Rae?’

‘I…’ Rae holds her head with her hand. Her brain feels unresponsive and her heart beats slightly too fast. She feels the beginnings of a migraine. _That damned music!_

‘I am finding it difficult to concentrate. Turn that off’, she pleads.

‘Oh no, I mustn’t’, Rax shakes his head. ‘No, you see, it makes my thoughts flow more smoothly. I can remember better. That was the music he had picked for our meetings. It always reminds me to focus on what is at hand.’

‘Well, it’s also the music you picked to focus on while breaking _my_ hand’, Rae utters through clenched teeth. ‘I thought it a lovely little piece the first time I heard it, I really did, but somehow I don’t like it anymore.’

‘That is good. You will first learn to associate it with vulnerability. In time you will feel it as power, when you open yourself up to new possibilities’, Rax says smoothly. ‘It is a very good piece.’

Rae grabs the datapad and prepares to yank it out of the audio speaker. Crush it against a wall, if needed. She will never listen to his music again.

‘No!’ Rax says, pulling at her sleeve and looking upset. ‘I do mean it, Rae, we cannot continue this if I don’t have my music.’

‘Alright’, Rae says, pulling away. She folds her arms and looks at him.

‘I propose a compromise. You keep your music, at the equal price I paid for it.’

His brow creases, as if not quite understanding her.

‘Give me your hand’, Rae enunciates carefully. ‘Advance payment for putting up with your _Cantata_.’

To his credit, he doesn’t even hesitate.

He holds his right hand out to her, palm up. The strange symbol tattooed on it gleams darkly under the stark light of the cell, as if it too is watching Rae. She has to remind herself to ask him about its meaning one day.

Right now, however, she has other business to attend to.

It's a measure of their differing mental strength, she thinks, that in their first tête-à-tête he will gain nothing but fresh humiliation, while Rae can at least pay him back for the duel on Jakku. Yet Rae doesn't feel any emotion to accompany the act: there is no petty triumph at causing him suffering, not even a faint twinge of satisfaction.

‘There’, she says, when it’s done.

Rax waits for his breath to grow less ragged. He nurses his shaking hand, distorted as it is into a tangled mess by Rae’s resolute ministrations, and continues as if nothing happened:

‘You realised, of course, the implications of what I’ve told you so far?’

‘You had a sad childhood’, Rae sneers. ‘So did I. Grew up in poverty and fought my way up. So what?’

‘You missed the point entirely’, Rax sighs. ‘I am not important. The boy on Jakku was never important. The master… _He_ is the point. Look at the timeline of when this took place. The Observatory was planned _before_ Palpatine had even fully taken on the mantle of a Galactic Emperor.’

Rae looks up at Rax. His pale face is deadly earnest.

‘That is – _was_ – Palpatine. My master and my teacher, Rae. That is what I wanted you to understand. Unworthy as I was, he turned me into a thirty-year project. Secrets within secrets, plans and counterplans, games that spread across decades and across the galaxy.’

He pauses, licking his lips.

‘Absolute power. Total control and nothing left to chance. How far it all goes, I myself barely know. What I was privy to may be just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. Indeed, I suspect no one who got near to knowing his full intentions was ever allowed to live.’

Rae mirrors him and licks her lips carefully.

‘If that is true, then the knowledge you offered the New Republic as payment is hardly an item worthy of trade.’

‘Not… so’, Rax whispers, wincing. ‘Many things there are, which he kept hidden, with worth well beyond just military knowledge... The New Republic can pry out those secrets. I can point them towards the places to look. I know things that could illuminate old mysteries or lead to new discoveries. Palpatine’s scope was both wide and deep.’

Again a pause, accompanied by a small and almost mousy smile.

‘The New Republic _will_ find my gifts worthwhile’, Rax whispers. ‘So may you, if you give me a second chance.’

He allows his hand to slowly inch towards her, his eyes strangely hopeful, the broken fingers trembling.

For too long a time, Rae wavers.

She reaches out and grasps his hand. She gazes at it thoughtfully, before bending back the index finger until it too snaps. She equals him well: she too has the ability to crush hope.

‘Let’s not rush into things. Everything is fine’, she says, more for the benefit of probable onlookers.

She waits for him to recover, feeling a dark hum of power coursing through the music around them. She shivers.

He was right about the _Cantata_. It makes her feel vaguely intoxicated.

‘Tonight, however, we only relive the past’, Rax says through gasps and chattering teeth. ‘To our friends who are surely watching us through the myriad of devices they must have planted on you, Rae - to our friends, yes, who are perhaps overcome with some concern at our, um, antics in here - to them I bestow my first gift.’

He stops, almost cringing. This is more like the Rax she had encountered on Jakku: depleted, incautious, unstable.

‘Speak’, Rae orders him. Her voice is like he had always meant it to be: liquid bronze.

‘Full information about the birth of the Empire, as planned in the so-called “Order Sixty-Six”. That is what Mon Mothma will receive. To be accessed at the Coruscant Archives in the Emperor’s Palace, by codes and biometric materials I am willing to put forward to the New Republic.’

‘Order Sixty-Six?’ Rae thinks it sounds like a hoax.

‘You’ll see for yourself. It’s all very interesting. Some very famous names are attached to the events. Both Republic and Separatist armies were involved in coordinated efforts, all for the benefit of the soon-to-become Emperor. When they realise the fullness of what was done in those first months, the sheer grandiose scale of his planning, then will our New Republic friends learn to take due precautions. Only then will I divulge other important matters that Palpatine put his attention towards.’

Rae shifts her gaze to the door, raising an eyebrow in question. Ackbar’s voice speaks over the intercom:

‘We accept your information. We will confirm our findings after we collect the access materials you spoke of. Does he… do you require medical assistance, Admiral Rax?’

‘He doesn’t’, Rae says firmly. ‘We’ll end this meeting first.’

She smiles beatifically. She allows his _Cantata of Cora Vessora to_ reach its spectacular peak, lets him soak up the narrative impact of foiled fate and twisting fortune. Oh yes, she was diligent in her listening of his music during that brief, fragile period when he had her trust.

She waits - and so must he.

It took her a full day to receive the splint protecting her fingers. If he told the truth about his gruelling imperial training as one of Palpatine’s personal agents, he can deal with a few more minutes of pain.

He’s earned worse.

She waits for the hushed quality following the final chorus of the enormous opening. It’s an intimate piece at this part: let me tell you a secret. Come closer.

‘Good work, Rax’, she says then, quietly enough. ‘Anything parting words you’d like to share?’

‘Yes’, he replies, shivering as if waking up from a dream. ‘Yes, of course.’

He leans near.

‘For you, Rae, I…’

Slowly, slowly, slowly, like some small creature approaching a sleeping nexu, he leans even closer.

He opens his mouth, hesitantly.

Rae loses her patience. She hauls him by the collar, almost without conscious thought, and closes the distance between them.

Rax blinks rapidly, as if caught by surprise. She almost reconsiders, but he soon relaxes and responds to her mouth, leaning his jaw at a more comfortable angle. After a while, he raises his good hand to let the fingers curl into her hair. Rae loosens her hold on his collar and gently touches the space between his jawline and throat.

They break the kiss. Rax rests his forehead against Rae’s, the gesture almost tender, and Rae becomes acutely aware of this absurdity they have created.

 ‘Sorry’, Rax whispers, suddenly looking shame-faced. ‘What I was thinking to do was-’

He tears at her neck, plucking away an audio bug in the process. Rae’s ears explode with static and she twists to the side violently, pulling them both down to the floor. Her side throbs in agony. She tears out the micro earbuds, wincing at the pain in her ears. She kicks out, but Rax doesn’t move to attack her.

Above them, the _Cantata_ draws near its roaring, lingering end.

‘Can’t hear us now, Rae. Listen. _Listen_.’

His voice is the barest of whispers, muted by the thundering music to all but her. Rae stills herself.

‘Your Empire’, he breathes into her neck. ‘Not dead yet.’

‘Where?’ Rae rasps.

Almost imperceptibly, Rax points the last unbroken finger on his right hand towards the audio speaker. His lips barely move as he answers:

‘That would be telling, wouldn’t it?’

She punches him with enough force to hear his jaw crack. Then she kisses him again.

It is not long before the cell door swings open and two New Republic officers take them both away.

‘The words have meaning’, Rax babbles, his tone almost sing-song, barely understandable through his bruised mouth. He struggles as he’s dragged off down the hallway. ‘Won’t you remember?’

‘I’ll remember’, Rae says, spitting out blood that isn’t hers.

***

 

Rax comes to his senses and nearly topples off the examination table. He stares at his hand as if it is an invasive object on his person. It’s neatly bandaged, all right. He can’t even feel the fingers through the pain, which is a welcome improvement. Very dutiful, those New Republic people.

Good people.

‘Hullo’, he greets the room at large.

He remembers and his face twists into a victorious grin. ‘I think that went very well, didn’t it?’

Rax lies back and thinks. How long will it take her to find his message? It’s just the sort of thing Rae likes: a tedious analysis project. She’ll love it.

He begins to hum happily.

‘I knew it’, his young nurse says briskly.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. I’ll be right back’, Mindiz replies.

She trots over to the nearest medical officer on duty and waves over a Bothan technician.

‘Could we do a neuroscan before applying any sedatives?’ Mindiz asks them. ‘I have a bad feeling about that one over there.’

‘Acting weird, is he?’

‘Yeah. Just look at that dopey smile’, Mindiz replies levelly. ‘Head injury. Told you.’

***

 

_What did he mean?_

Rae chews at her tongue, staring at the ceiling of her cell.

The words have meaning...

He put a message inside the music? Impossible. The prisoner’s datapads are read-only dummy gadgets, fit for nothing but playing or displaying standard files. He could not have edited the sound files to prepare anything.

Unless he used pre-existing elements to the Cantata? Rae frowns. It’s possible, she supposes.

With a painful heave, she pushes her healthy arm out to retrieve her own datapad. She turns it on with doubt already etching itself into her face.

Alright, audio file library. Classics. _Cantata of Cora Vessora_. Fifty versions, each adapted to the hearing range of different musically-inclined species.

She listens to a few different versions, powering through the Jablogian one through sheer willpower alone, and tries to imagine what might be important to Rax. The rhythm? The quality of the voice?

It suddenly hits her. Of course. Always running off and chasing stories, Kolob had said. That had been Galli, the boy. Rae rolls her eyes. The grown man is not so very different at all.

In the darkness, Rae sits herself upright.

She flips through her datapad manually, taking care to include several different reading projects, as the sort of thing a nervous insomniac might do to while away a long and sleepless night. The New Republic would be wholly mad not to be monitoring her datapad searches. She must not let them figure out she’s searching for something.

It takes days, but Rae is patient. She finds the first meaningful discovery when she realises there are annotations to the opera: each edition has subtle differences in translation. Yet the isolated words have no meaning: they are just garbage, nonsense words scrambled together.

She persists.

Yvarema has no singular or plural, not exactly, being a set of languages evolved from hive-minded communication based on emphatic perception. Disconnect the members from the group as a whole, it loses its sentience. A nice metaphor for… something, she supposes. Civilisation. Order.

The Empire.

She thinks it a sign from him.

She summarises her findings. She reads the official annotations on the slight differences from the original story and runs his chosen words through a culture/protocol program:

_We (of the more numbered group, great joy and happiness)._

_Group-walk-explore-hurry (active verb of the future, explorer-scout worker drone group, great excitement and uncertainty) – similar meaning to ‘take flight’, ‘take off’, ‘abscond’, ‘escape’, ‘retreat’._

_We (of the less numbered group, great disquiet and agitation) – similar meaning to ‘I’._

_Group-object-possess (of the more numbered group, all drone groups, great calm) – similar meaning to ‘have’, ‘have in hand’, ’obtain’, ‘secure through work’, ‘keep emotionally balanced’, ‘succeed’._

_Group-think-advance (active verb of the future, lore gatherer drone group, great calm) – similar meaning to ‘prepare’, ‘think to the future’, ‘skip hibernation’, ‘plan’, ‘prevent attack through action’, ‘possess strategic efforts’._

Oh.

Rae works through all the different possibilities, just in case, before she reuses the opera's original words and finally reveals the one overlying message.

_We will escape. I have a plan._

Her pulse quickens.

She knows not to put any faith in him, but she will give him this: he knows how to grab her attention. 

_We will escape._

It is worth a try, isn't it? A suspension of disbelief. He just might not be faking it.

Rae lies back. She touches her lips, and slowly smiles.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end chapter of the rarepair exchange assignment! Permian-tropos, I hope you found it fun!
> 
> Important notice:  
> I will add future chapters to this fic as a continuation of this story, a second arc if you will. There are a planned 9 chapters in total, so if you've enjoyed the first arc, let me know if there are any character cameos you would like to see in the second arc. :) 
> 
> Huge grateful thanks to anyone else reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Beginning lyrics are from 'Dangerous' by Son Lux


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